Pre-K and reading

[Terabith]

My older dd is four and spontaneously has started sounding out three or four letter phonetic words. I believe she is definitely *ready* to learn to read in a more formal way, but she is not particularly *interested* in doing so, if that makes any sense. While she can read some of the first Bob books, it is obviously frustrating and tiring for her. She will be five in November, and I've been assuming I will start formal homeschool stuff in August or September, including reading instruction. But part of me wonders if it's worth it. She's obviously got foundational skills, and I wonder if she will develop a personal interest and desire to start reading in a year or two. And/ or if she would easily learn to read in a year or two what might take more effort to master now. (Not that I think everything should be easy or that she shouldn't learn to work, but part of me thinks that at four, hard academic work might not be in her best interest.) Even waiting 18 months to start formal reading would still put her in her official kindergarten year, and would also have little sister be four too. (So maybe I could teach em both at the same time.) I dunno. I don't want to not give her the academic background to prepare for a rigorous WTM education, but I'm wondering if I should spend her prek year just focusing on read alouds, memory work, reviewing phonograms and phonemic awareness, and playing. I feel torn by the two philosophies, especially since I think it wouldn't be too terribly hard for her to learn to read. I'm just not sure she is intrinsically motivated to do so, and while I have no difficulties telling a six or seven yr old that they just have to learn to read, I wonder if at four it is the best thing to do. What do you guys think?

[Tonia]

If she is not interested I wouldn't force her, BUT there are things you can do without it feeling like "work" to her. We play a lot of word games and use Explode the Code for handwriting and phonics reinforcement (she loves to do workbooks). You definitely don't need to do anything, but you could certainly start a phonics program if you want to. We use Ordinary Parent's Guide (http://peacehillpress.com/index.asp?PageAction=VIEWPROD&ProdID=35) and I really like it. My dd is also four and while she doesn't love OPG, I figured that as long as I found it teachable and easy to use FOR ME, I would be able to make it fun for her. So, I use OPG but dd doesn't see it! I write things on a white board or a chalk board and let her erase them or we play word games. She is learning to read but it is almost painless for her.

So, I say look at your options for phonics programs and pick one that you think would be best and pick it up now for your own reference. Introduce some games and write words for her to read - just make it fun!

If you need some ideas for games, I've got some linked from my blog.

[Lisa in the UP of MI]

My dd is about a year younger than yours and everything we do is made into a game. For pre-reading we play the sound game from Montessori Read and Write and are learning the SWR phonograms. She's been asking to spell for a few weeks now so I finally brought out our movable alphabet and helped her through a few words. Like your dd she is very much ready to learn lots of things but I don't think she'd like doing any formal work yet (or for a while). We'll just keep doing what we are doing until she seems ready. Does your dd want to learn to read right now? Unless she seems really interested I wouldn't start anything formal yet. But games are always fun. :D

[Sandy in Indy]

In another recent post, someone mentioned starfall.com. There's lots of fun phonetic games there for kids. My 7 yr old (mr. I can't read cause it's too hard) loves this site and begged me today to let him play.

[Narrow Gate Academy]

We start using Phonics Pathways here for preK. I believe the lessons only take us 5 minutes at first. The most I would spend for a 4yo is about 10 minutes a day. With both of my girls, they did 5-10 minutes of Phonics Pathways, 5 minutes of counting or a math related activity, and then another 20-30 minutes of reading-aloud by me. By the end of K both girls we're reading at about a 2nd or 3rd grade level. This worked for us not because I pushed them into reading, but because they were ready to read. As long as the lessons are short, I don't see any reason that you couldn't start now. I wouldn't wait hoping to combine your kids later. Phonics is best learned at one's own pace. Either the older one will become bored or the younger will find it too hard.

HTH

[SandraDumas]

the same situation. Today she took pencil in play doh and wrote c o p and I helped her sound it out and she said cop. Then she did the same with several other words.

But sitting down and doing consistent reading lessons is tiring and exhausting for little minds. She will be five in November and I am NOT doing kindergarten with her this coming year, 08-09. This would have been her pre-K year in school and it'll be pre-K for me too.

I had a very bright older son who was ready and interested and even he bottomed out after a while.

You're way, way better off getting School Zone workbooks with the CD ROms, Leapster Word Factory and Letter Factory (anything leapster!), and all those other preschool things.

She can learn a lot on her own just by playing CD ROMS and Leapster and have lots of fun with no pressure!

[LlamaMama]

You can always try reading instruction for a week or so, then back off if it appears challenging. My daughter watched some of the Leap Frog videos during her quiet time and that was a fun for her.

As you read books to her, pick a repeating or easy word for her to say whenever you point to it. This is more of a sight-word approach, but it is still fun. I imagine most kids will be able to memorize a large number of words that way. You can reinforce the phonics instruction by using OPGTR.

My daughter is four years old and we've used OPGTR for about a year. We would stop when it seemed especially challenging and then start again when she seemed developmentally ready. Like a previous poster, when my daughter was younger, most of the instruction would take place at the white board. I would tell her stories and draw pictures to keep her engaged.

While I've mentioned ideas about making learning "fun", any type of learning is an effort. At four or five, I think it's just fine to expect them to concentrate on one activity for 15-20 minutes. If they have trouble with it, then it's good to train them into it. My daughter receives great joy from her ability to read. I think Jessie Wise Bauer is the one that says that most children without a learning disability can start the process at age 3 or 4 and will progress well.

[Laurel]

If she is not interested I wouldn't force her, BUT there are things you can do without it feeling like "work" to her. We play a lot of word games and use Explode the Code for handwriting and phonics reinforcement (she loves to do workbooks). You definitely don't need to do anything, but you could certainly start a phonics program if you want to. We use Ordinary Parent's Guide (http://peacehillpress.com/index.asp?PageAction=VIEWPROD&ProdID=35) and I really like it. My dd is also four and while she doesn't love OPG, I figured that as long as I found it teachable and easy to use FOR ME, I would be able to make it fun for her. So, I use OPG but dd doesn't see it! I write things on a white board or a chalk board and let her erase them or we play word games. She is learning to read but it is almost painless for her.

So, I say look at your options for phonics programs and pick one that you think would be best and pick it up now for your own reference. Introduce some games and write words for her to read - just make it fun!

If you need some ideas for games, I've got some linked from my blog.

I agree with most of the other posters, that if she isn't interested, it is best not to force the issue, but you can do lots of reading games and activities that are fun.

I also have a 4 1/2 year old that really does not like OPGTR (the book itself). So we do similar things as the above poster: I write the words on a mini white board, or on index cards, I/we make them on the magnetic board, and I have wipe-off sentence strips that I use as well. She has no problem reading the words and stories from the lessons, as long as she is not reading out of the book. I think part of it is that the words are too small for her, and a big part (for her at least) is that she sees so much writing on the page, and she will get distracted and discouraged before even starting.

[kalanamak]

sort of boat, I don't push someone so young. I read read read to him, cuddled up and alone, and sometimes point out the three letter words, and sometimes sound them out quickly so as to not interfere with the flow. Sometimes I put an index card down and he can see line by line what I'm reading, etc.

Kiddo loves to "catch me out" and correct any little mistake. For now, I think he's mostly getting this through memory, but will sometimes go ahead and fill in, say, the last word on the line if I pause (and I only pause on things like bus or cat). He is a math kid, and is much more open to "new" things in math. For language, he bows his head and looks a little shy if I ask him something he can't just automatically answer. I think that is his disinterest in formal phonics, a la Phonics Pathway. He did/is doing well with preETC and MCP A, but he prefers I explain the page and then not observe him as he works through it.

Quick funny: This week he mentioned to me he was going to be reading soon. I said great, but what makes you think that. His answer was that he'd read it in a fortune cookie.

[Terabith]

I think Jessie Wise Bauer is the one that says that most children without a learning disability can start the process at age 3 or 4 and will progress well.

I definitely agree with this. However, my question is really not whether or not she *could* progress well, but whether or not that is really an age appropriate priority. Am I making any sense? We have been playing word games since she was tiny...she knew her letters and all their sounds at 18 months. They watch Letter Factory and Word Factory and Word Factory 2. We have the Fridge Phonics, and they love that. I read to them constantly, and I do often have them fill in (primarily from memory, but sometimes using sight vocabulary). I model sounding out words, and I model writing too for her. ("Okay, let's see, play starts with /p/, so I write a p. Now, what's the next sound? Hmmm... pllllllay. /l/. L says /l/. Now, the next sound is /ay/. At the end of the word, we spell /ay/ as ay.") We play rhyming games and initial sound games....I Spy and bingo and memory and slap it games. We make up silly songs with different rhyming words. We play phonogram memory and bingo and twister. We spell words with bath letters and magnetic letters. I made some Montessori three part cards with a picture and word and then another copy of the picture only and the word only. I have "building with sounds" times where I will say a word and she will hand me a block for each sound in the word. We count words in sentences and talk about the differences between letters and words. We go on scavenger hunts for letters or things that rhyme with cat or things that start with /b/. So I feel like we do a good bit of "fun" learning built into our day, just incidentally. And she can sound out phonetic 3-5 letter words without much trouble. But it just seems to be exhausting to her. I think part of it may be a visual thing; print is usually kind of small and it requires a good bit of focus for her to read even a short book. She can do it. But she doesn't enjoy it. Her fine motor skills are pretty lousy, so workbooks like ETC don't work very well. And again, she just doesn't like them. She will play on starfall, and I've pondered Headsprout. She did respond well to the demo lessons. I think she could make good progress with regular, systematic reading instruction such as OPG or Phonics Pathways. Frankly, I think my 2.5 yr old could make pretty good progress relatively easily. I'm just wondering if it's worth it. She's got foundational skills. Will she be losing out on anything if we wait a year or two for interest to (possibly) develop in reading on her own and her visual skills to mature? I think while she would make very good progress with reading instruction, I think in a year it will take much less time for her to learn. Possibly, she'll be like me and just explode into it and go from being a nonreader to reading on an eighth grade level with no formal instruction sometime around five, with no effort expended on anybody's part. (Hey, I can dream, right?) Even if lessons only take five or ten minutes a day, I wonder if that is really necessary. Will it dull her future enjoyment of reading? Probably not, but I wonder if it will start the schooling adventure on a slightly unpleasant note. I really don't know; I'm just pondering. I'm torn between a great desire to get started and a concern about developmental appropriateness. And do I really *want* my four year old to be able to read? Do I want to explain genocide after she sees it in a headline as we stand in line at the grocery? My husband is already complaining that when he tries to take her to the restroom, she complains that she's a girl and can't go into the men's room. He thought that since there was no picture, she wouldn't know, but she pointed out the word men and said, "Daddy, that says men. I'm a girl. I go in the women's room." Dang that book larning, thing! :o

[Tonia]

Will she be losing out on anything if we wait a year or two for interest to (possibly) develop in reading on her own and her visual skills to mature? I think while she would make very good progress with reading instruction, I think in a year it will take much less time for her to learn.

There is absolutely no reason to start a program now if you don't want to. I think everyone was making suggestions on the assumption that you wanted to do something more. If you want something that you can use to guide you in helping her along then go ahead and if you don't want to start a program, then don't :) She's only four- you're not going to damage her for life by waiting a year :rolleyes: But, as long as she is physically capable I would begin phonics instruction when she is five. Even if she doesn't want to. A kid has gotta learn to read :rolleyes: The only reason I'm working on reading instruction with my dd now is because she wants to learn. If she didn't we would wait until she turns five. But no, if your dd really doesn't want to learn now then don't feel pressured to start a program. She's got plenty of time to learn to read.